Stories from the Arrowhead Pond
by TheLazyBlackCat
Summary: A series of short stories about our beloved feathered friends.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This is (in case you haven't noticed where you are) a fanfic, meaning that none of these characters belong to me in any way, shape, form, or way. I claim nothing other than actually writing this lil ficlet. I hope you like it

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"What?" the pudgy manager looked around. "I thought you guys said you liked broccoli, so I added it in." He stirred the soup, watching the little green pieces bob in the broth.

"Phil! You can't serious be this dense!" Mallory backed away from the pot in open revulsion.

"Wing would lay a half dozen eggs if I fed him this!" Nosedive sniffled. His brother was practically dying as it was, he certainly wasn't going to help him along.

It'd been nearly two weeks since the aliens first appeared and they were all sick to some degree or another. Wildwing and Grin were bed ridden, quarantined in one of the guest rooms while toughing out a week long fever. Tanya was doing her best to treat them all while staggering through her own illness. The worst part was that Phil didn't know what to do. The group was barely even eating now and he was worrying himself sick about them. He stood to lose thousands, if not millions if these birds didn't get better soon. So, he decided to make a hearty chicken noddle soup, just like Nana used to make. He even got creative adding broccoli, seeing as how they had all loved the little green plant when they first tried it out.

"Maybe I should have just stuck with carrots," he muttered to himself.

Before any more arguing could resume, the kitchen door swung opened and Duke made his way in, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "Somet'ing smells good," he perked up making his way to the table. "Oh! That looks good," he picked up a bowl and spoon that had been set next to the pot.

"It's chicken soup!" Mallory slapped his hand away from the pot.

"It's delicious, is what it is," Phil praised himself, but was quickly miffed by the duck's decision to not even try it. Duke literally dropped the spoon, beak agape, and starred daggers at the pot-bellied human. "What!?" he whined. "You haven't even tried it!"

"Phil! We're ávere not raptrín."

"Avene-what?" The human mangled the word.

"Ávere," Duke repeated unsure of himself. Did humans even have a word to mean what he was trying to get at? He was sure they did. "What da ya call 'em?" His mind raced to recall the word he was looking for as he snapped his fingers a few times. "Herberbs..? Herbvorbers..? Plant based diet only. Ya follow?" The grey drake hoped that the human would catch on because he wasn't exactly sure how to explain himself any better.

Phil looked down at the pot once more and it finally clicked. "Ohhhh…" he looked slightly embarrassed as he covered the soup. "I didn't mean to-"

"No offense taken," Duke cut him short as he sniffled. They'd have to be patient with the human just as much as he had to be patient with them. It was eerie to realize how similar yet vastly different their languages were. Certain words held one meaning in one world and a completely different one in the other while others just didn't translate or even exist at all.

Duke turned to face the other two ducks and sighed. "Couldn't ya two just 'xplain it ta 'im? I don't expect any of 'em ta be experts on ducks," he waved a hand referring to the human race in general.

"Wait, you have chickens on your world?" Phil suddenly realized. "Are they, you know, like you? All humanoid and stuff?"

The three ducks eyed the human curiously. "Well, ya,"Nosedive affirmed. "What else would they look like? And, can we, you know, get rid of that thing?" he pointed at the offending pot of chicken noddle soup. "Even if you're joking, it ain't cool, man!"

Phil was silent for a moment, glancing between the three and the pot. A new thought blossomed in his mind and he cringed.

"It ain't that confussin'," Duke took a seat at the table, misreading the human's expression as puzzlement. Phil blinked at him and the duck chuckled to himself. The grey bird took it upon himself to enlighten the human a little about themselves. "Our system is made of three 'abitable planets. Our world 's the furthers from our star and mostly all ice an' ducks. There are other birds, o' course, but they prefer the clos'r, warm'r planets. Some of them oth'r birds are raptrín."

"Rap tin..?"

"Raptrín," he corrected before shaking his head and simply giving up trying to correct the human's pronunciation. "Close enough. Raptrín are, I think ya call 'em, birds of prey'?" he ventured. "They'll eat oth'r birds an' meat."

"Oh," Phil nodded.

"In the past, the raptrín would attack ávere, to eat us," his feathers ruffled at the morbid thought. "But through some lengthy war a very long, long time 'go, we all struck a deal. They left us 'lone and we left 'em 'lone. Since then, the inn'r most planet farms oth'r animals for the raptrín and our world trades wools an' precious stones fo' foods we can't grow in the snow an' ice. And ev'ryone lives happily ev'r after."

"Give or take," Mallory nodded at the extremely abbreviated history lesson as she heated water for some hot chocolate. Chocolate was another one of those new thing to them, but unlike the broccoli, they seemed to love this as much as humans. They were even more ecstatic when they realized that it came in a variety of savory forms and flavors. It was even as a drink! If they ever found a way back home, she was hell bent on taking a tree with her. At least Phil said it grew on a tree. She'd have to confirm that later.

"So what do you guys eat when you're sick?" Phil asked.

"Not other birds," Nosedive shivered at the thought.

"Ya, about that," Phil brought his hand to the back of his neck. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain to them that duck was also a dish many earthlings enjoyed. How does anyone even begin to explain that?! Well, he didn't have to do it now, but he'd have to tell them preferably sooner rather than later. Hopefully he'd remember before they ever saw it on a menu or something.

"So, I take it humans eat chickens?" Mallory shuddered at the thought as she received a nod from her new manager. She sighed dismayed. "They're probably small and stupid like the other Earth birds, hu? I guess there's no helping that. And you probably eat it too, right Phil?" Another nod confirmed her suspicion. "Whatever," she brought four mugs of hot chocolate to the table. "Just don't eat it in front of us, please."

"No problem." He'd probably have to give up breakfast omelet burritos as well. He watched the three take sips of their drinks and was glad that he didn't have any eggs in the fridge either. Who knows what kind of a monster they would have taken him for then.

"Next you'll be telling us you also eat ducks!" Nosedive added jokingly as he placed his mug down. The other two chuckled, sipping their hot drinks.

Phil froze. He set his mug down on the countertop quietly. "You know, I think we need to have a group talk about Earth," he smiled nervously at the members of his new hockey team.

~The End ~

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A/N: Not long ago, in the darkest recesses of my wardrobe, I came upon an ancient tome from my childhood. It was filled with lore and illustrations that I had once scribbled upon parchment impatiently as a child.

LOL! Yes, I found an old notebook with little stories (which now that I've grown up know them to be fanfics) that I had written out as a kid. One of them struck a cord with me and I have been trying to write it out in story form for about two months now. And while trying to hash it out, this little plotbunny cuddled up next to me, urging me to have some fun. And I have. I'm sure it's not an original idea (I haven't read through many Might Ducks fics here), but I still hope you enjoyed the read.

On a final note, I simply made up "ávere" and put an accent on "raptrin". I had noticed a few stories calling Falcone "raptrin" and had no idea where it was coming from until I read his character's wiki page. It struck me as odd that the ducks are labeled "humanoid" while Falcone was singled out as "raptrin". At first I thought that whoever edited the wiki page meant to put "raptor" (which is the word used for birds of prey), but then thought that it could have very well been the series writers who where creating the series' world. So, in the end I decided to go with the creators building their little world and added my tiny little twist to it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** Still don't own anything simply because I don't have the millions of dollars required to buy anything from Disney. It's a sad life, really.

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Wildwing glided back into the net, partially because as a goalie it was his job to fill up the net as much as he could in order to prevent the puck from getting in. And then there was the massive wall of muscled feathers that was barreling down the ice his way.

As a goalie, he was used to the abuse and beat downs that others players barraged him with. He thought of it as a sort of badge of honor that he could stop just about anything that came his way. Sure, there were times that not even the protective gear could stop a puck from stinging when it hit him, especially his brother's wrist shots.

But this was Grin.

He swallowed, second guessing himself before pushing thoughts of doubt and fear out of his mind. His stormy eyes glue to his advancing adversary, squaring up into the net the best he could. Grin pulled knotted arms back further then Wildwing thought possible and snapped his stick with the force that send volcanized rubber flying at the young goalie.

The puck resonated loudly against Wildwing's padding as it made contact, sending the white drake back into the net while the small black disk bouncing off of him, never crossing the red line on the ice.

"Opps," Grin brought a gloved hand up to his beak, his features of concerned mien.

"Wildwing!" Nosedive skated up to his brother, pulling him out of the net and helping him to sit up. "You okay, bro?"

The goalie nodded, bringing a gloved hand up to his chest. He didn't think it was possible, but the wind had literally been knocked right out of him. He was sure that he'd find a bruise there later.

"Oh, mama!" Duke came to a stop next to Grin. "I don't ev'r wanna be on da receivin' end of dat!"

Grin looked down at the eldest duck on the team worriedly before returning his gaze to the goalie. Tanya was kneeling next to Wildwing making sure that he was alright while Mallory watched from behind the net.

"Don't beat y'rself up, kid," Duke patted the massive duck on the back trying to reassure his teammate. "Dat slap shot of y'rs is gonna win us a lotta games."

Grin's face remained worried. He skated up to the goal and presented a hand towards his team captain. Wildwing reached up, allowing the taller drake to help him to his feet. "That was impressive," his voice was quiet. "I don't think I've ever been hit like that."

"My apologies," Grin responded.

"No, not at all!" Wildwing brought his hands up. "I didn't think anyone could hit a puck harder than Dive."

Satisfied that his brother's life was not in any danger, the young blond looked up at Grin. "Dude! That puck nearly went through him!" he was simply amazed by what he had witnessed. "Goalies are gonna cower when they see you coming down the ice! Can you teach me to swing like that!?"

"Fellow hockey playing ducks, gather around for the good news!" Phil's voice cut the practice short as it echoed throughout the empty stadium. The ducks skated up to the bench and waited for the human to make his announcement. "You guys are now official the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim!" he pulled some paperwork out of a manila envelope and presented it to Wildwing. "I had to make a few calls and pull some favors, but you guys get to play this season even though you technically missed pre-season. You're first two games are gonna be home games! So, you better clean up the mess you're making under the arena soon. We'll be getting the first of the staffing in here next week."

"Thank you, Phil," Wildwing handed the paperwork back to their new manager. "We're sorry for whatever problems we caused you in getting us into the league."

"It was nothing I couldn't handle," the human puffed up with pride.

"What kind of troubles?" Tanya was curious as to what humans considered questionable about them. Her exposure to the species had been limited over the nearly two month stay on Earth and mainly included the employees from Lectric Land, the arena, and Phil Palmfeather. That sampling was far too small to form any solid conclusion about mankind.

"Well, there was the question of the number of players," Phil brought his hand up to count off on his fingers. "But with the videos of you guys playing from dawn until dusk, they've overlooked that one easily. Two of you are girls. No offense, I know what you two can do and am totally supportive of you ladies. None of you are legal residents, but you weren't exactly residents of Earth beforehand. The league is gonna help sponsor you all on that one. And two of you are 'underage'. But seeing as how you guys said you mature at a different rate than us humans, I just weaved that one as accommodating to your alien cultural values that hold no semblance to human values."

"Two?" Tanya looked around. "Nosedive is the only one younger then 'eighteen'."

"So is the big guy, Grin" Phil pointed out.

The group turned to look at the tall drake before returning their gazes onto the human.

"That's according to Tanya's calculations, of course." She had worked out a formula to equate the difference between Puckworld and Earth's calendars. He was just grateful that it had been simple enough to follow. He huffed amused. It was funny that math seemed to work the same way on both worlds, with the exception of a few numerals written differently. It really was a universal language!

"Grin is younger than me?" Wildwing stated befuddled.

"You didn't know?" Phil was skeptical. "How could you not know? Aren't you guys all friends or something?"

"I don't know about 'friends'," Mallory looked around and wondered where the human had gotten that idea from. Just because they had appeared together didn't mean they had known one another before. "I think we're still acquaintances at this point."

"Really?" Phil scratched his head.

"Dude, we barely knew each other for, like, two days before we got here," Nosedive leaned onto his hockey stick.

Phil was stunned. "But you guys play so well together. Like you've been playing together for years!"

Duke looked down at the human somewhat amused. "Any duck worth their tail feath'rs can play hockey. It's second nature ta us." He chuckled at the human's puzzled look. It was a look he tended to wear more often than not. "We told ya, ev'ryone back home plays hockey."

The human nodded recalling the tale he had been told not too long ago. It was still a hard to swallow story and he had some doubts. I mean, a giant dragon hell-bent of on making a whole civilization pay for the actions of their ancestors from who knows how long ago? Nah, there must be something else that these birds weren't tell him.

"I see," Phil muttered looking them over. He pushed all those thoughts out of his mind. He'll ponder all that later during some down time. For now, he was just happy that he could get them into the league without too much trouble. Not to mention he was overjoyed to realize that they already played so well together. Chances were they wouldn't want to hire a coach either and that just meant more money that stayed in pocket. These birds were the greatest investments of his life!

The six players watched as the human suddenly turned, merrily tucking the manila envelope under an arm and hum as he headed back to his office.

"Nice fellow," Duke commented. "Though I think there might be a few loose screws in there," he pointed to his own grey head.

The group chuckled. Phil was a little eccentric, but for the most part pleasant and very committed to his work and them. They turned to return to their positions on the ice.

"So," Nosedive eagerly skated up alongside Grin, a wide smile on his bill. "We're the happening youngster of the team, eh? I think you and I are gonna be the best of friends, bud!"

~ * End * ~

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A/N: I don't know why I'm still writing, other then this seems to be compulsory now.

Anyways, I thought it would be comedy gold to make Grin the second youngest member of the team. I mean, common, a huge guy like that! It's HILARIOUS! Right?! RIGHT!?

...

Maybe I should get out more...


End file.
